Silver Spring Maryland: A Sparkle by the D.C. Line
The “other” Maryland suburb of Washington, Silver Spring, Maryland, is a blend of urban downtown and parks, apartment city living and sprawling suburban homes. Its ethnically diverse background, evident by the lack of a majority race in the main high school, cultivates an unique setting for Washington, as does the variety of cuisines available in restaurants downtown, including Burmese, Italian, Ethiopian, Lebanese, Chinese, Moroccan, Indian and other types. Silver Spring, Maryland also serves as an office destination for many companies and government agencies, as well as home for nearly 76,000 residents.
Silver Spring is a more “affordable” suburb outside Washington, with neighborhoods spanning over the I-495 beltway. It is also extremely diverse, with less than 50 percent white making up the population. Many couples start families here and move on, or some decide to stay and raise their families in Silver Spring. A few red line Metro stops serve the area and bring residents into Washington to work and play.
Silver Spring sits beyond the northern tip of Washington, D.C. in Montgomery County. It remains an unincorporated area with rough boundaries. The original Silver Spring was a 20-room mansion on 250 acres of property, built in 1840 and named after a spring filled with chips of mica, which reflected silver and hence the name. Abraham Lincoln visited the house several times, and a few prominent individuals came out of that home: Lincoln's Postmaster General (Montgomery Blair), as well as Francis Preston Blair Lee, who became the first popularly elected senator. The house remained through the 1950s, and in the meantime the region began to develop thanks to the works of the great-grandson of the original owner of the Silver Spring mansion, Lee's son.
Silver Spring eventually developed into a shopping mecca, and revitalized that in the new millenium. Today, visitors come to downtown Silver Spring for its chain of shopping favorites, such as Whole Foods, Borders, Ann Taylor Loft, DSW Shoe Warehouse and others. It is also headquarters for several major companies and agencies, such as Discovery Communications, AFI (American Film Institute) Silver, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency offices, and the headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventist church.
As a suburb, the residents enjoy many major parks in the area, including Brookside Gardens, Acorn Park (where the now-dry “silver spring” exists), Sligo Park and Rock Creek Park. Families flock to these parks on weekends with bikes and picnic baskets in tow, and often roads are closed down on weekends to allow for running and cycling.
Posted on Apr 11, 2011 by Rin-rin Yu
